Friends of Princeton University Library Small Talk with Gene Andrew Jarrett, Dean of the Faculty, Princeton University
“From the Library of Congress to Loafing-Holt: Reliving Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Libraries”
The Friends of Princeton University Library present Gene Andrew Jarrett, the Dean of the Faculty and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University. Jarrett will share the story of how remarkable libraries bookended the professional career of the legendary African American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar at the turn of the 20th century.
Libraries inspired Dunbar both as a young man and as a poet. In his mid-twenties, he overcame illnesses to work at the Library of Congress, where he built his brilliant sense of literary time and place, and where he learned that distinctive forms of art, such as music and poetry, could converge, stimulate the imagination, and move audiences. A decade later, in 1905, he published a book titled Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow, which included a poem about the “sylvan, cool retreat” called “Loafing-Holt,” or the second-floor study inside his home in Dayton, Ohio, where he prematurely passed away the following year.
We welcome current Friends of PUL members to attend in person. A reception will follow the live talk.
The presentation will also be available by Zoom.
*PLEASE NOTE: Online registration is now closed for this event. Please email libraryf@princeton.edu if you would like to attend in-person or virtually.
- Date:
- Wednesday, February 1, 2023
- Time:
- 4:00pm - 6:00pm
- Location:
- Center for Modern Aging (formerly PSRC), 101 Poor Farm Road, Princeton, NJ 08540
- Audience:
- First-Year Graduate Students Friends of Princeton University Library Independent Scholar / Outside Researcher Member of the Public Princeton Alumni Princeton Faculty/Researcher Princeton Staff Princeton Student Student Friends of Princeton University Library
- Categories:
- Friends of the Princeton University Library Event
Gene Andrew Jarrett is Dean of the Faculty and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University. He is the author of "Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature" and "Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature." He is also the co-editor of "The Collected Novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar" and "The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar." For his latest book, "Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird," published in June 2022 by Princeton University Press, he has won fellowships from Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the American Council of Learned Societies.
This event is part of the Friends of the Princeton University Library Small Talks Series.
View recordings of previous events.
Join the Friends of the Princeton University Library. Friends receive a newsletter, two issues of the Princeton University Library Chronicle, and are invited to participate in a variety of activities and events, including exhibition openings, lectures and talks, gala dinners, workshops on topics such as preservation, bookbinding, and print collecting.
To request disability-related accommodations for this event, please contact pulcomm@princeton.edu at least 3 working days in advance.